Inspiring Leadership and Equity with Dr. V Boykin | Inbound 2024 Interview

I gotta be completely honest. The conversation that you're going to get to dip into is absolutely amazing. Meeting with Dr. V was mind blowing and inspiring and just a conversation about humans, culture and cash. And it's filled with stats. But Dr. V is a senior program manager, GTM Leadership HubSpot. There's a leader in leadership and equity space. Her mission is to rewrite the narrative for marginalized groups in the workplace, resulting in increased profitability and decreased expensive attrition. Dr. V's book, Fix your face and watch your tone. I love that title. Women know what's needed is a product of that very mission. And as she tackles the equity challenges marginalized communities face in both personal and professional settings. With a blend of life anecdotes and extensive research, Dr. V offers practical solutions for women and allies striving for career success and personal fulfillment. Work less, do more was the inbound talk that Dr. V gave. In there, you could learn five ways to decrease stress and increase productivity in 2024 and beyond, including utilizing existing HubSpot resources and. And also learning more on building support systems, which we dove into. Dr. V in the talk it said would also show you how to tackle mentorship, which we talked about in this interview. Ambition, partner, support, work, life balance. Yes, another topic we hit in this interview. And opportunity to improve professional productivity. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, let's dive right into it. My interview with Doug. Dr. V. Hopefully you get inspired. Hopefully you take action. Sit back, grab a cup of coffee, a tea, whatever beverage you like, and enjoy the ride. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm super excited to be here because today we are doing a journey of inbound talks. People who were at inbound 2024, who had a message to bring to the world, who are passionate about things that matter. That's the way that I like to put this. And today it's your boy, George B. Thomas. But I'm here with Dr. V. Dr. V, how the heck are you doing today?

I am fantastic. And I will just expand the introduction. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, and they, them, his, her, she, them, they, them, all of the above. Welcome to the conversation.

I love that because it really kind of sets the tone of where we're going. So first of all, let's just start with you. You just had last week an inbound experience. You got to hit the stage. You got to talk to humans. Just talk to us a little bit about a. How that journey and the capability of having that communication standpoint, how that, how that felt like. Give me a Little bit of your inbound journey, if you will.

Absolutely. Well, it felt fantastic. It was a big stage, it was a huge monitor. And there's something so gratifying about sharing your life's work in that type of atmosphere with people that are actually interested. However, it was my third inbound. I actually did a like a meetup almost the first year. It was like a 30 minute session and I was like, hey, I'm going to be doing some work, trying to get my doctorate. I want to hear from women. Are y' all interested in this? And there was a resounding yes. And then I went back the following year and it was a deep dive. And I'm like, hey, here's what I've stored a been uncovering. I want to share it with y' all first. What do you think? And there was so much support. So this was the first year that I went to inbound with the doctor in front of my name. And it felt great. It was the largest crowd ever. When I looked out and saw all the people filling the seats and then standing two and three deep around the sides and in the back, I just immediately felt so calm, so comforted, and so much community.

I love this because you. You literally just described probably the opposite of what anybody else would say when they use the words large crowd. But congratulations, by the way, Dr. V of actually having the doctorate. And I love this, I love this journey that you're a painting, because it really is almost inbound personified, where it's like I went to help and then I went to help some more, and then I found myself on this stage helping even more people. And it's this idea of reciprocity, of putting into the world and. And then getting back based on that. I'm a big advocate of that type of thing. So I want to dive into. You had a good experience. You were super calm. You were ready to help the humans. Why inbound and why the thing that you're passionate about at Inbound? Talk me through that.

Why inbound? I mean, that's where it's like the heart of HubSpot. It's the beating heart of HubSpot. It is where our partners are, it is where our advocates are. It is where our customers are. You know, it is where you can be a grow getter. So how could it not be inbound that I would want to deliver this message to? First and foremost, I think the why this topic. My dissertation was about a very simple topic. You know, what does it take for women in tech to obtain and Retain senior leadership positions. That's the focus. Just a little light reading. And so I can't think of a better audience for this than tech and specifically women and allies in tech. Because what I found was that there were a lot of struggles that were specific to those that identify as women, but also a lot of struggles that really overlap with our allies as well. So I wanted to share this message. I wanted to share what could help. I wanted to call companies into the conversation because they can create the most change. And just in summary, like, please do not send me another health benefit letter about how I can diet or exercise or work out better. Any of that. Like, that's the last thing I need. And the least interesting thing about me is how I look. So there's other things I do want to call companies into the conversation so that we can create change together.

I love this idea of calling companies into the conversation. It's interesting because for years now I've been helping humans with HubSpot. Helping organizations make millions of dollars with HubSpot. Yeah. Recently I started to research based on this superhuman framework we're building of the billions of dollars that are going out the back door due to company culture. So I love this Dr. V. That you're like, bring the companies into the conversation. What is the conversation that some organizations aren't having that you're like, I'm advocating that we bring you into this conversation. Talk, talk us through that a little bit.

For sure. So diverse teams increase profitability by 15 to 35%. Full stop. I don't know of any company that could actually afford to leave 15 to 35% of profits on the table right now. When you put women into the C suite. Hello, Yami Kate. So many others, you literally close a profit gap of 21%. But even more to the point, when you leave diversity out, you get airbags that are designed for a crash test dummy that makes it less safe for women and smaller sized. So there's twofold to this. In order to have products that, that are, that accurately address the needs of the customer, you've got to have different layers of the customer in the rooms where the decisions are being made. You can't solve for somebody you don't know. And so for me, we, we have to have diverse teams. And I, I caution all companies and people, let's, let's shift the conversation because whether you support diversity, inclusion or belonging should no longer be a conversation. Whether you're a good person or a bad person, nobody wakes up in the morning and wants to be A bad person. We really need to talk about the cash of culture. The cash of culture, because we're talking about dollars and cents here and everyone can support that. Everyone.

So when you talk about the cash, by the way, so dope, the cache of culture, maybe drill down in a little bit because first of all, I love this idea of, of having a representation of all the types of people, which, by the way, you have to be very open minded to, to lean into that. You, you have to understand again, the cache of culture, like growth mindset based on the conversations that are having there. But drill into when you say, you know this cash in this culture. And like, what are some of the micro pieces that maybe you had during your talk that you're like, we need to talk about these four things or these five things. Like what, what, what were you kind of, you were bringing conversational data to hopefully invoke insights that you would then get human action out of. Like talk me through that path that you were taking them through.

Well, one of the things that I talk about is if there's a 21% profit gap that when you remove women from the C suite, right, that you experience, then you want to recoup that. But how do you recoup that? If 43% of new mothers are leaving their tech roles, the math isn't going to math for you. So then you need to look at why are they leaving? Well, number one, since COVID there has been a collapse in work life boundaries. Like, this is just things that are facts. And so that means there's been a 38% decrease in work life balance since COVID for all of us. And then when I looked at my study, 85% of us are doing chores in between meetings. If we're doing chores in between meetings, that means we're not strategizing. We're not strategizing. And then on top of that, what are the chores we're doing? Well, we're getting meals ready, we're rotating laundry. Maybe you're cleaning. I can't think of anyone that would go into the office, go to the supply cabinet, pull out the vacuum, and start vacuuming the corporate workspace. So why are we doing that when we're at home? Because what companies really need us to be doing is being more productive. What they need us to do is strategize for the next meeting. So it's the most effective. They really want to insulate us so we can do our best work. And you do your best work when you're less stressed, not more so then you talk about, what are the things that decrease stress? Well, work life balance. Okay, great. How do we create more work life balance? Because when you have more work life balance, you're less likely to attrit. Your productivity goes up, profitability goes up. So it's a win all the way around. So my talk was like, hey, what are the things we can do to increase work life balance so people can show up more productive and therefore more profitable in the workspace?

There's, my brain is going like multiple directions right now because I'm like, wait, is there a camera in my house? And they saw me like, switch my laundry a little bit ago or like, what's going on here? But I agree with you. Like, I, I've, I've worked remote for, well, since 2013, I've worked remote. So I, I had an unfair advantage when the world went through a dramatic change because I had kind of been part of that change, but not in all the ways that it brought to us and to see folks and the way the workforce has changed in so many working remote and trying to navigate and understand this. I love that you're painting a picture in there and I love this idea of work life balance. But I also have to laugh. I would have never pulled a vacuum out and never tried to like, clean the workspace because there would have been a team for that.

That's right.

And so what's interesting though is you started to talk about like, these fundamental elements, which, by the way, you're, I'm looking at your inbound page. The talk. Work less, do more.

Yes.

You, you, you started to lean into this thing that really intrigued me. And I was like, I really want to have a conversation with Dr. V. And it's this human side of things because I'm, I am a big advocate of the humans. It's this idea of like, tackling mentorship, this idea of ambition, even though you might feel slightly disjointed from like the typical workspace. You mentioned work life balance, but then the opportunity to improve professional productivity. Because I think from a business owner standpoint, I, I, I have this delicate balance of like, yes, I want us to get stuff done.

Yes.

But I don't want any humans in the organization to ever feel like they're burnt out or that they are in a toxic waste dump. Talk me through a little bit of like, from a leadership standpoint, from a Dr. V coaching us how to be more humans with our humans around these things of like, ambition and professional productivity, like, dive deep into that for Us.

I think that companies have always put together their best efforts of a robust offering, right, like the benefit package. And I think that one of the shifts that potentially could be made by companies is to look at what actually increases the stickiness of an employee. Because there is nothing more expensive than replacing an employee. I mean, the organizational knowledge, the actual cost, the resource, the time. Like nobody wants that, especially when you have someone qualified. One of those things is mentorship. And if you are a woman and you have a mentor, you're 56% more likely to get a job. And if you're a man, you're 93% more likely to get a job, which means that you become more efficient at talking about your strengths, abilities and skills. So that's one of the things. So it makes it easier for you as an employer to find the person that you want. The second thing that happens is that you become better at navigating challenging situations. You become a better communicator. You're able to unpack the challenging scenarios that happen at work. You don't spend all of this mental energy shoulding, shoulding, S H O u L D shoulding on yourself, which, especially when it comes to communities that are marginalized, which are typically the global majority, you spend a lot of time shoulding. And when you're shoulding, you're not strategizing. You're literally just re victimizing yourself and you're chewing up important, you know, mental energy. And then when you think about, if 85% of us are doing chores in between meetings and companies want us to be more productive, there are simple things that we can put in place. You can put in a stipend for house cleaning. You can put in a stipend for grocery delivery. Like Instacart is $99. You could get that as a corporate membership a year. And international companies have the same, same opportunities. So if you're not thinking about what to make for dinner because you have a meal kit, because you have a stipend for it, that means you don't have to stop work as early. And that means in the middle of the meeting, you're not like, gee, I wonder if I have time to go to the grocery store. And then you're. And then you're lost. Additionally, one of the things that's really challenging for women, when I did my study, I found a stat that 80% of women leaders in tech said it was their partner or spousal equivalent that allowed them to be that leader in that senior management position. But I also had somebody that said, when I asked the question, who's discouraged you? They said, every man I've ever dated, including my ex husband.

Oh, ouch.

And as somebody that's had a few very unsuccessful marriages, I would have said the same thing before I turned 48 and made a different choice than a partner. And what I say to that is, let's recreate the social support of an incredible partner for all of those that have it or don't have it. Let's make it equitable. And so the grocery delivery is the same thing as saying, honey, can you pick up some ketchup on the way home? Right. The meal kit is the same thing as saying, hey, babe, would you cover dinner tonight? You know, it's those very simple things. It's bringing in a professional house cleaner on a little bit of stipend. You reimburse, what, a hundred bucks a month? It's $1,200 a year. Such a small amount for the productivity you get back. But that's like, hey, can you do some laundry? And those are the things that companies need to be called into the conversation to provide because it benefits them. I've been a business owner. We don't like to spend a lot of money. We spend as little money as possible because we don't have a lot. But you definitely have enough money if it directly ties to productivity. And it does.

There's so much I love about this because. And there's so much that I hope for the viewers, the listeners, is eye opening or ear opening, maybe more importantly, heart opening, to be honest with you, because I think that's where we can make the most changes. I. I hear you saying, like, we need to rethink and almost recreate what. What once was important. Benefits package. Beer garden snack.

Yeah, no more beer gardens.

Like, like, whatever was historically important, it might not be important to the humans that are actually serving you. And so rethink that. Reimagine. What is that? And by the way, I. The idea of, like, a cleaning stipend, awesome. Gym memberships, awesome. Whatever that is, like, I'm down for it. I think that it's a really interesting place. The other place you took us, though, you were talking about mentorship, and I was like, wow, the stats, the percentage rate that you threw out there, I was like, holy mackerel. That's like a maximum difference. And my brain went in a couple different directions of like, well, I know I've talked to humans who want to hire a coach, but they can't afford hiring a coach. And then my Brain went to, well, crap. Why aren't we just having leaders in organizations actually be the mentors to make it sticky? And then I went to, well, crap. If I'm going to give them a meal plan, maybe I just give them a stipend for the coaching mentorship that they actually need. Because I know that. Help me unpack, like, where as a leader, because I feel like other leaders will be like, sweet, this is awesome. But yeah, where and how? Like, so let's get into a little bit of like the action side of this. How. How do I start to do this? How do I have like a little bit of a matrix to know which direction to go? Help us out here, Dr. V. Well.

I think there's a couple of things to set the stage. When we talk about women, especially the ones that were included in my study, 100% of them said they wanted to advance their career, which means they want to work hard for you as an employer. That's phenomenal. Like, who's not excited about a identified group that wants to work harder? The problem is 90% of women passed on the opportunity to advance their career, which means you extended an opportunity and they said, nope, I can't do it, which means it hurt you as a business. So there's that. Additionally, 95% of women in my study were told to be more and less assertive. What? So, so I just, I have so.

Many feelings right now, right?

Which means that there's women in meetings that are literally playing double Dutch. Like, do I say it? Do I not say, Should I say it? Should I not say it? How do you navigate that so you don't have to provide a coach or a mentor. Just know that's what your employee group is doing. They're circling that drain. You're not getting the most out of them. So what do you do? What are the benefits you currently offer? Are those the benefits that make the biggest impact we know a lot of places will offer? Like flexible pto. I like flexible pto. It's a great equalizer. It makes a lot of sense. They offer flexible work hours. There's no, there's nothing, no difference in my work at 8am or 8pm except at 8am or actually 5am I'm going to be a lot more productive. So allowing that flexibility, these are things you can put in place that you, you that aren't going to cost you anything. And if you feel like they are, then you're hiring the wrong people. Right. If you can't trust them to manage their PTO or Their work hours. That's a different. Different challenge altogether. And you need to have some sort of mentorship program. And they're not actually that challenging to set up, but every new hire should have a mentor. Well, that seems kind of. Yeah, of course. Someone to show you around. If you're not virtual, it'd be the person that shows you where the lunchroom and the bathroom are. If you're virtual, it's the person that helps you learn the systems. But you don't just need that when you're new. You need that every time you're looking to make a change. You need that to sustain you. You need that because guess what? There might be women that are trying to figure out if they should be more or less assertive. There are also men and people that identify as men who are trying to figure out how. How to tell that woman her idea wasn't the best without getting labeled. So there's a benefit on both sides. By the way, men in the workplace that show vulnerability, that show empathy. Right. The backlash against them just showing up as humans is intense. And when men get extra time at work, they're supposed to put on a cape, be Superman, and do more work. So they're feeling under family because Superman doesn't take breaks. So how do you navigate that? You unpack that with a mentor and with a coach, and you can do it with either. But you need to provide that. And it's not a feel good thing. It's not. If you're a good company, you do that. If you're a bad company, if you want to reap the benefits of the money that is associated with it, you do these things. And so when you look at it through that lens, it vastly changes how you do things and why you do things. So this becomes really, again, a conversation about money.

Yeah. And I love that not every. Not everything should come down to money, but I mean, when it comes to business, like money talks and, you know, the rest of the same talk about money. Yeah. Here's the thing that I love about this conversation, and I mean I love about this conversation. I learned years and years ago that true success, true magic moments of life are on the other side of being vulnerable. I'll never forget I was sitting at a restaurant Cheesecake Factory, with a mentor and old employer of mine, Marcus Sheridan, who wrote the book they ask, you answer. And he said, Dr. Vita, these words. He said, if you don't start your keynote with that fact, you're missing out on the magic moments. And the fact was, I'm A high school dropout. And I had been running from that for 25 years. And I was like, no way, bro. But I did it. And oh my gosh, was it magical. And from that day on, I was like, look, I want to show up being vulnerable. And as a man, I know that that's not popular, but hey, it is who I'm going to be. Which leans into another piece that a friend and I talk about all the time. And that is, I wish that I could wave a magic wand and give everybody the power to just show up as a whole ass human and just be who you're supposed to be and not worry about being judged on the things that people have put out there to judge us on. And so, so much that you are resonating this, this like mental, herculean, whatever thing that women have to go through in the boardroom of like, it. Well, just, frankly, it shouldn't have to be that way. And so I'm glad that we're having this conversation around this. There, there. You bring up mentorship. And I want to dive in a little bit deeper because there was other, again, keywords, not from the SEO perspective. By the way, nerds who are watching this from just like, oh my gosh, I want to talk about that. There were keywords in your description for your talk. And I think it's important when we think about culture and cash and it coming down to revenue and it coming down to humans being able to be the best humans they can be. And I, I don't know if organizations are thinking about this part, therefore I want to have it be part of the conversation. You, you have building support systems.

Yeah.

Talk to me about a. Why it's important for organizations to have support systems. How the heck do you even start to build a support system? Like, what is the job to be done? Because, like, support system for some, I would probably look at and be like, nope, that's not a support system. That's like, so talk us through that.

A little bit as you talk about being authentic. I'd like to share with you how I actually started my inbound talk because I think your audience might appreciate it. So because I am a black woman in tech, I'm going to start with my credentials. So I said I had a BS in marketing, I had an Ms. In Management and leadership. I have an mba, and then I have a DBA in Organizational leadership. And then I also say before all that, I was also a single mom, a stripper and a felon. And then I wait. And that was some It. Well, I appreciate that. It's also true. And I ran from that for many years. I mean, there's still places in Scottsdale, Arizona, I can't rent an apartment because I'm a felon. I think I've kind of made up for it. But look, it is. We are where we are, and I did what I did, and we acknowledge that. But I think it's really important when you talk about showing up as human, that those of us that have the social capital to spend, spend it. And we spend it so that someone else won't have to wait until they're 50 years old to admit that like, I did. Right. And so that's why I share that.

Oh, it's so good. It's. So the reason I say that that was powerful and awesome is because, like, we have these pasts. And you even said, like, I think I've made up for that. I'm 50, gonna be 53 tomorrow as the time of this year. So September 26th, I'll be 53. Right.

Let's go.

And. And I've spent probably the good 20 years trying to make up for the early George and I. I don't know too many people that can say they went from like, a bouncer at a bar to a pastor at a church to, like, a HubSpot specialist. Like, I just don't. That's not the typical journey. And so, yeah, you know, and that's why, for me, it's about giving back to the humans about having these types of conversations. And so as we kind of land this plane here, it's, first of all, great conversation, tons of value. When you do think about those support systems. Yeah, like what? What? Give us some narrative, some direction in that. So that we leave this conversation and we're actually starting to implement and put something in place that helps the humans and helps us get the culture of cash to get the professional productivity that we're looking for.

Absolutely. So let's start with why we would want to talk about this 50%. 50. Why we want to talk about this 50%. We'll try it again. We talk about this because There is a 56% improvement in performance when employees feel like they belong. There's 50% lower turnover, and there's 75% fewer sick days. So if you are a small company, I suggest you put out the virtual anonymous box, and it should be called hard questions box. And it should be a way for employees to anonymously put in there the questions that they really want to ask. Right. Why is so. And so promoted and I'm not. Why is it that I'm having a hard time feeding my family on what you, what you're compensating me. Why is it that you continue to use this term in meetings? So if it's not safe to ask that out loud, that they can ask it someplace and then you need to honestly answer it and you might need to bring in a professional to answer that. If you're a mid sized company, you need to have an employee resource group. You need to have a group for employees that are representing less than 10% of your population to get together and just talk and know. If you're not part of that group, you do not need to know what they talk about. I once had someone in HR say, well, you were supposed to report back to me what the group said. I was like, okay, so this is the day I lose my job. Great. It's really hard for me to get another one because I'm a felon, but here I go losing my job. You need to have those, those groups and those resources. If you're mid sized, you should be able to afford to bring in speakers, bring in somebody else to say the things that you're not saying that your employees are thinking. They need to have that voice. Giving it a voice changes things. And if you're a larger company, not because you're good, not because you want to be known as best at, but because you want the most productivity and profitability from your employees, you need to have programming that supports people, belonging, period, point blank, bring in the speakers, format. The groups have a mentorship program at every size company that is directly dedicated to improving the decision making that your employee groups make. And if you are mid or larger size company, specialize those programs. When you have people that are part of the marginalized group, also usually known as a global majority, the global majority is not CIS white male. Just to say it out loud, that's not the global majority. They do need an equitable platform because if you are 6 foot 5, you can see over that fence and you might see that storm coming from the horizon. You're tall and you can see, but if you give me a ladder and I can see over that fence, I might look down and see that boulder that you are literally about to trip over. I might see the fact that that airbag is not going to be safe for me. I might see the fact that that AI tool is not going to be able to understand my voice, is not going to be able to recognize my face. That's why you want everyone seeing over the fence, not because you're good or bad. It's going to save you from making really bad decisions and it's going to increase profitability. Who?

I don't know about you, but I'm jazzed up and ready to go. Like let's. This has been so amazing. So Dr. V. Yes. A website, a book. Something you want to point people to if they want to dive in deeper, want to learn more or less. If they want to connect you. Where do you want to send them?

Absolutely. So it's Dr. Vboykin.com I call everyone in because there is this book is for everyone. It is called fix your face and watch your tone. Women know what's needed. But there is a whole chapter on allyship. It's in the back of the book separate but equal. But it really is. It is a step by step guide of how to navigate and how to set yourself up to have more personal and professional equity. I call on every business you you should be distributing this to your employees because you want to make more money and this will help them become more productive, less risk of attrition and more profitable.

Such a great conversation. Listen, we just gave you a ton of data for your brain to incorporate. Hopefully you got some insights. Now it's your turn to take some action. Of course, along the way, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human and you know what I'm going to say. Do some happy hubspotting along the way.